Telling each other they love each other every day is this Stockton couple’s secret to a long and happy marriage.
Joyce and Walter - known by his middle name Les - Bratley celebrate their 65th wedding anniversary tomorrow.
They met when they were teenagers at Palais Dance Hall in Stockton and married at Stockton Parish Church on February 4, 1950.
“We have had our ups and downs but we still say ‘I love you’ to each other,” said Joyce, 87, from Hardwick.
Joyce and Les, 86, live independently in their own home and enjoy a walk to Roseworth Library to borrow a couple of thrillers for him and romances for her.
“We are so lucky to have them as parents and grandparents,” said their daughter Pauline Stirman, 57, an NHS manager from Fairfield, Stockton.
Pauline and her younger sisters Susan and Julie will be spending the day with their parents and the grandchildren and great-grandsons will be visiting too.
“We’ve told everyone to call in for a cup of tea and a slice of cake,” added Pauline, who has two grown-up children, Paul, 29, and Amy, 25, and three grandsons, Luke, seven, Joey, four, and Junior, five months.
“It’s precious time for us all to spend together.”
Julie is flying in from Sardinia in Italy, where she lives, and Susan, who has two children Alice, 11, and George, 17, is coming back to Teesside from her home in Kent especially for the big day.
Family has always been extremely important to Les, a retired fitter and turner engineer, and Joyce, a retired shop assistant who worked at Stewart’s clothes store in Stockton.
The couple enjoyed family holidays in Moraira near Benidorm in Spain and Les added he loves having the children round “keeping him young”.
Looking back at her parents’ wedding photo, Pauline added: “Mam looked so beautiful and Dad was so handsome. Mam wore a lovely white dress with lace and a long floral bouquet with flowers down to the floor.”
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